Fraternity Files Suit to Trademark "Greek"

Sophomore Chuck Waszniewski was sick and tired of being mistaken for someone else at parties.

"I'd just run up on this girl on the dance-floor, double-fisting, you know how I do, and we'd start grinding. I'd park right up on that bumper and tail-gate like it was my fucking job. Whoo!"

After the initial shock of being groped by a complete stranger, Waszniewski said that the girls would ask who he was.

And that's where the problems began.

"I'd tell her I was Greek, and she'd immediately ask me if I liked feta cheese. I mean, what the fuck is that about? How are those two related?"

The unsolicited questions picked at Waszniewski's confidence, until his first day in Western-Civ101.

"The TA with the big tits passed out the syllabus, and my old bitch of a professor told us we'd start our class discussing the Greeks. I was super-pumped, you know, because I'd get to stare at those double-D's on the TA every class, and because I thought me and my fraternity brothers would finally get the attention we deserved. I mean, we throw the gnarliest parties on campus. Even if no one comes."

But Waszniewski was in for a bitter surprise.

"That wrinkled ho of a prof - I gave her a terrible rating on Rate My Professor - started lecturing about Athens, Sparta, and some bros named Socrates and Play-Doh. I raised my hand and asked, 'What the fuck is this about?'"

After being forcefully removed from class by the TA for uttering obscenities - "I'd totally tap that," says Waszniewski - he learned the brutal truth.

"Apparently there was this entire civilization of people who lived way back in the B.C. times in Greece and created all these sweet things like democracy, epic literature, drama, Euclidean geometry, and wine. I love wine, but only from boxes. Slap the bag, man! Oh, and I thought B.C. only stood for 'birth control.' What the fuck is that about?"

Despite laying the foundation for Western civilization and surviving as an ethnicity and culture to the present-day, Waszniewski had a bone to pick.

"I give 'em mad props for what they did, but let's be honest: the term 'Greek' should only apply to frats and sororities. We had it first. Mine was started in 1954."

Waszniewksi voiced his concern to his chapter of the Beta Sigma fraternity, and he felt immediately vindicated in his pursuits when his brothers echoed similar instances of mistaken identity at parties and bars.

Within hours, Waszniewski contacted an intellectual-property lawyer and started the paperwork in an effort to trademark the term "Greek."

"My son had a legitimate case to make," says Alfred Waszniewski, Chuck's father, of the firm Waszniewski, McKinley, and Paupodopolis. "This sort of confusion around identity could have tremendous negative effects on the psyche of these boys. They'll start to question who they are and where they come from, and those aren't the kinds of questions that college-aged kids should be asking. They should only be worrying about what bar they'll hit up next and which inebriated broad they'll take back to the house. That's what was always on my mind. It still is.

"That might be why my first marriage didn't last."

Regardless, the elder Waszniewski almost didn't take the case.

"My one partner, Greg Paupodopolis, didn't think this case had any merit. I think it's just because he likes to eat Greek salads and he doesn't want the name to change. I told him this was bigger than cuisine, and I started the paperwork immediately."

As soon as the lawsuit hit the local papers, news of the landmark case spread throughout the country like wildfire. Soon, every fraternity and sorority joined on, expanding it to a class-action lawsuit against the entire nation of Greece over naming rights.

"It's exciting because we're setting an entirely new precedent. The University of South Carolina sued the University of Southern California over the usage of the letters 'SC' on all sorts of goods, but this goes back to an entire bloc of fraternal organizations against a nation and its history. Personally, I think we'll win because no one even thinks of the word 'Greek' referring to a culture. They think of it referring to loud, obnoxious boys and girls who wear funny letters and drink excessively on their lawns. That's a hard legacy to beat.

"I don't even know any Greek people."

Alfred believes his chances only improved after word from Judge Kendall James of the Wapakoneta County Court:

"He told us that if we inform him of our case he'll deliberate on it intensely, scrutinize every angle, and render a decision."

When reached for comment, Judge James says that his answering machine says that to everyone who calls and leaves a message, and declined further questions.

The case remains on the docket, and the elder Waszniewski feels confident that his team will emerge triumphant.

"I had to read Romantic literature in my one stupid gen-ed class in college, and there was this poem by Keats about a 'Grecian Urn.' Why can't the fake-Greeks just go back to that adjective? Why did they even change? I think it was to capitalize of the popularity and recognition of the word 'Greek' thanks to the many fraternities and sororities in this country. What the fuck is that about?"

Chuck hopes that a winning verdict will finally put his social life back on the right track.

"Once girls stop confusing me with a bunch of hairy, goat-eating Mediterraneans, I can start scoring like a champ. The only GOAT I worry about is the 'Greatest of All-Time.' That's what I call my penis."

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